Self-Renewal and Multipotency Coexist in a Long-Term Cultured Adult Rat Dental Pulp Stem Cell Line: An Exception to the Rule?

Abstract

SummaryThe stemness state is characterized by self-renewal and differentiation properties.However, stem cells are not able to preserve these characteristics in long-term culture because of the intrinsic fragility of their phenotype easily undergoing senescence or neoplastic transformation. Furthermore, although isolated from the same original tissue using similar protocols, adult stem cells can display dissimilar phenotypes and important cell clone/species contamination. Finally, the lack of a clear standardization contributes to complicate the comprehension about the stemness condition. In this context, cell lines displaying a particularly stable phenotype must be identified in order to define one or multiple benchmarks against which other stem cell lines could be reliably assessed. The present paper demonstrates that it is possible to isolate from the rat dental pulp a stem cell

Injured cardiomyocytes promote dental pulp mesenchymal stem cell homing

“…The present study was planned to unravel some still elusive and debated aspects of stem cell early homing in the heart after ischemic lesion. We employed the MUR-1 dental-pulp rat stem line due to its c-Kit [17] that is comparable to those of some cardiomyocyte progenitor cells [39,40] and because of its capability (under appropriate stimuli) to differentiate into cardiomyocyte lineage in-vitro, as previously described [17] and here confirmed (data not shown). Furthermore, we considered that teeth (and more in general splanchnocranium structures) share a common neural crest origin with some parts of the heart [24,41,42].…”

“…Cell culture and in-vitro damage assessment on cardiomyocytes MUR-1 rat dental pulp stem cell line was previously established [17] and stored in our laboratory. The embryo rat cardiomyocyte (H9c2) cell line was a generous gift from Dr. Claudia Penna (University of Turin).…”

“…Immunohistochemical analysis of MUR-1 cell early homing in the cardiac tissue As MUR-1 cells express CX43 [17], N-CAD and vWF which are involved in MUR-1 adhesiveness invitro (as described in the paragraph 3.2), their cellular localization was analyzed also after ex-vivo implantation. CX43 localization changed in response to ischemic condition.…”

“…Anyhow, molecular and biological data about MSC early homing in cardiac tissue are scarce or frequently absent; MSCs are reported to display a limited plasticity in the differentiation process towards a functional contractile phenotype [16]; finally, the heterogeneity in MSC derivation, antigen expression, together with the differences in isolation and expansion protocols, further contributed to complicate the comprehension and integration of the available data. In this context, our group recently isolated, identified and characterized a MSC line from rat dental pulp (MUR-1), a tissue directly derived from the neural crest, and hence featuring peculiar characteristics [17]. This cell line can be propagated and passaged for long time in a feedlayer/supplement-free culture without any signs of neoplastic transformation and spontaneous differentiation or alterations in geno-and pheno-type, clonogenicity, self-renewal and potency.…”

Rat dental pulp stem cells: isolation and phenotypic characterization method aiming bone tissue bioengineering

“…DPSC canal so maintain their immnunophenotypic properties and differentiation potential, even after a month of cryopreservation of the whole tooth (Tatullo et al 2014). Thus, extracted human teeth, usually discarded as biological waste, could become an interesting source of cells for regenerative therapies, aiming not just the development of new teeth, but also other tissues as bones, muscles, and nerves (Telles et al 2011;Sprio et al 2012). Despite their various advantages, the elucidation of DPSC biology is not yet totally clear.…”